Dear Sir,–The correspondence on tight-lacing is very interesting, but even when tight corsets were the rule, a 14in. waist was the exception. I was in a shop doing a good class corset trade during the period 1902-6 and I remember that the best selling sizes then were 21’s and 22’s.
Very few young ladies would own to anything larger, but there were often to lace on, showing that compared to modern standards they were buying stays too small. Twenty inch stays sold readily and there was a steady demand for 19’s and 18’s.
The smallest size ever sold by me was to a very slender lady who always bought 17in. stays. She did not lace in except even her stays were new, and I have seen het when putting her old stays on after a fitting, clasp them without any effort and without undoing the back laces. She measured only 18in. over her stays.
There were plenty of portly dowagers in those days, and stays of 30in. and over were stocked. The largest size I ever handled was a pair of 44in. for an excessively stout lad,y who was delighted with her purchase. I well remember the hilarity in the department when they arrived. Two of the slimmest of our girls stood together, and the stays went round the pair of them. In these large sizes, comfort was the main consideration; but among the young slender, their vanity, and the example shown by the fashion plates, were a great inducement, and the very few young people then wore stays which were not pretty well pinched in.
Yours truly,
“EX SHOPPIE.”